Page:A General Dictionary, Historical and Critical, Volume 6.djvu/656

630 for nothing more paſſionately, than to return into Germany, to ſee the author of that book; which he did accordingly in the year 1549. I find ſomething in this account, which puzzles me; for it is not at all probable, that a man who has conceived ſuch an eſteem for Melanchthon, by reading his Body of Divinity, that he takes him for the only wiſe man in the world, ſhould take a journey to Leipſick, continue there ſome time, and embrace there the Proteſtant Religion without waiting once upon that divine; and that he ſhould be impatient to make him a viſit, only upon reading at Bologna another work of that author. It is not true that Camerarius aſſerts this other work was the treatiſe de Anima (concerning the ſoul) and that it determined Languet to return into Germany. He expreſſes himſelf ſo as to hint, not a ſecond journey, but the firſt, pepulerat tandem ut in Germanian veniret. i. e. “Determined him at laſt to come into Germany.” Laſtly it is very ſtrange, that if Languet had been Camerarius’s diſciple and boarder at Leipſic in the year 1548, Camerarius ſhould yet aſſert that Langius did not come into Germany till the year 1549, out of a deſire to ſee Melanchthon, occaſioned by a book he read in Italy. It is unqueſtionable that either Camerarius or Monſieur de la Mare muſt be here miſtaken. It is moſt probable that the former is in the right, for Languet himſelf relates, that having read Melanchthon’s Body of Divinity in Italy in the year 1547, and not being thoroughly ſatisfied with what is there obſerved concerning the Lord’s Supper, he was determined to go and conſult the author himſelf, and ſaw him in the year 1549. Would he ſpeak thus, if he had embraced the Proteſtant Religion at Leipſick, in the year 1547, and if Camerarius had been his profeſſor and his Landlord that ſame year in the ſame city? while one of the first Counſellors of Auguſtus Elector of Saxony, and if we may believe Thuanus, he left that Court only becauſe he was ſuſpected to be one of thoſe who adviſed Gaſper Peucer to publiſh an Expoſition of the Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper agreeable to the Geneva Confeſſion of Faith. That Hiſtorian adds, that having left the Court of Saxony he retired with the Prince of Orange, and was employed in very important affairs; but that whilſt he applied himſelf to them he fell ſick and died at Antwerp September the 50th 1581 at the age of threeſcore and three years. He was very much eſteemed by Monſieur du Pleſſis Mornai. He is thought to be the author of the Oration which was delivered before Charles IX. King of France, December the 23d 1570, in the name of ſeveral Princes of Germany. It is to him people aſcribe the famous Treatiſe which is intitled, ; i.e. “A Defence againſt Tyrants.” The Latin Letters which he wrote to Sir Philip Sidney were printed at Frankfort in the year 1639. Those which he wrote in the ſame tongue to both the Camerarius’s, father and ſon, were publiſhed in the year 1646, and have been reprinted with ſome others in the year 1685: there is a beautiful Preface prefixed to them, which contains a noble Panegyric upon him.

They publiſhed at Hall in the year 1699 a large Collection of thoſe Letters, which he wrote to his maſter the Elector of Saxony during the courſe of the .,
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